


After Quite Some Time, We'll Be Who We Were

by Gemz0rz, lozateazer, purrslink



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-15
Updated: 2013-05-15
Packaged: 2017-12-11 23:16:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/804367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gemz0rz/pseuds/Gemz0rz, https://archiveofourown.org/users/lozateazer/pseuds/lozateazer, https://archiveofourown.org/users/purrslink/pseuds/purrslink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil is back. Natasha and Clint are both Clearance Seven, and yet somehow they've been left out of the loop -- until they're not anymore. Fallout ensues.</p><p>Unbeta'd. Mistakes belong to Gemz0rz.</p><p>(( Because plot snowballs happen in Skype. And because I couldn't write without my handler and my hawk. ))</p>
            </blockquote>





	After Quite Some Time, We'll Be Who We Were

Clint hadn’t shown up for their usual sparring date, and he hadn’t answered the texts she’d sent, each one more taunting than the last. It wasn’t like him to disappear before she’d wiped the floor with him; that was usually reserved for after. His quarters were empty, phone nowhere to be seen, and she left him a sticky note that his room’s biometrics override passcode was a predictable joke.

 

Really. She hadn’t even had to work at it.

 

Annoyed, Natasha strode off down the corridor. She could find him if she put her mind to it but it was more efficient to grill Sitwell.

 

Her stride lengthened with the determination that came with searching Sitwell out. He was a good handler -- the second best, really -- but she’d always thought he was just a little bit afraid of her. And today she was counting on that, because so help her, if he tried to tell her Clint’s whereabouts were classified, she would --

 

_Coulson._

 

There he was, behind three security checkpoints, paper turning like well-behaved dry leaves beneath his fingers. Natasha could almost hear it.

 

She must have made a noise, something strangled, because he looked up with a look of confusion painted on his face. It was nothing compared to her own, and as he stood, she backed up until her shoulder blades met the wall forcefully.

 

“Tasha, I --” His hands raised, staying where she could see them, but she cut him off with a sharp glance and a step forward. He didn’t need anything in his hands to hurt her, and vice versa. It was a tense staredown for a long minute, her trigger finger twitching, professional instinct telling her to do one thing while the carefully cultivated trust between them said to do another.

 

In the end, she moved first, lightning quick. The silk of the inside of his jacket ghosted over the backs of her hands as she reached around him, her cheek pressed tight against the subtle diagonal of his tie. She didn’t shut her eyes. It was disbelief that kept them open, not distrust, because everything beneath her fingers screamed Coulson. He even smelled right, and for a LMD to achieve that... it wasn’t possible. This was him, unequivocally.

 

Her breath rushed into her lungs the same way a wave crashed on a rock, and she shuddered, pulling away. She knew where Clint was.

 

Coulson called after her, presumably her name and something else, his hand resting absently over where she knew he’d been stabbed, but no one followed her. She knew he would know where she was headed, he always seemed to.

 

Cheeks still too pale with shock to flush from exertion, Natasha hoisted herself into the vent shaft of the common room, drawing the grate shut behind her. She knew his favourite stretches and bends of vent space, and with a sigh that was louder than her movements, she shuffled off to find him. When she came across him, countless turns later, knees and palms dusty from crawling, one look told her that he was about as right as she was.

 

“Clint...” His name always belonged in her mouth, no matter how she said it. It was one of those things she just knew.

 

He didn’t look up, didn’t flinch, almost as if he’d been expecting her, but the tension in his shoulders was too intense to miss. It extended down his arms, corded biceps standing out in the low light, and his fingers bunched in the material of his pants, knuckles white with the strength in his grip. She knew that tension: on top of everything, he was afraid she would pull it out of him, make him talk.

 

She approached him slowly, knowing that it was better not to ask. Words were hard between them sometimes, but this was old hat, and she sidled against him, her head fitting neatly against his shoulder, her hand resting palm up against his thigh. He made a small noise of relief, wasting no time in tangling his fingers with hers, the sweat of his hand doing nothing to endanger the grip he had on her. Tasha could hear his heartbeat, hammering away inside him, and she turned her head to brush her lips against the crook of his neck.

 

“Breathe,” she reminded him. “It’s just us.”

 

It wasn’t just them, not anymore, but here in the vents they could pretend. He nodded, the motion jerky, and she fought to make her breathing match his. It was an old exercise, one they hadn’t used consciously in years, and it lowered both of their baselines slowly. She didn’t say anything, not a word, not willing to jeopardise the bit of tension she’d been able to coax from him, and they sat there for hours, until there was a chime in the hall below them that signalled the beginning of the dinner block.

 

Tasha lifted her eyes in silent question to Clint’s. They were impossibly blue even in the near-dark.

 

“M’place,” he said quietly, and she nodded. They would grab something on the way, because the last thing she wanted to do after today was be subject to Clint’s cooking. For the first time in too long, she stretched in the cramped space, and there was a minute creaking of metal. Clint looked disapproving.

 

“I swear, Barton, if we get dumped into some junior’s office because I had to chase you into this hamster maze...”

 

“Not my fault you never bothered to learn where we are.” He shuffled a few feet before pointing at the grate in the path. “Wickley’s office. Then Sherith’s. Then --”

 

“Pinkton’s,” she supplied. “So we’re over accounting. It’s not like they like us any more. And you know they still carry weapons.”

 

Clint shrugged, his movements perfectly silent as he led them to the end of the building furthest from the caf. They dropped from their hiding place without an audience, and slipped out of the building unnoticed. It was worth the cab they hiked a few blocks to call, because it meant they didn’t have to double back around the building to the parking enclosure, where there would be more agents and more security checkpoints, and in under an hour, they were sitting in one of Clint’s hideaways, boxes of Thai tucked like Tetris pieces into a canvas bag.

 

The assortment of food had been at her behest; he never thought he was hungry at times like this, but she knew from experience what he could put away.

 

Half an hour later, she’d been proved right. Empty noodle containers were stacked to the left, and Clint polished off the order of spring rolls as she began gathering the empty cups of peanut sauce.

 

“Don’t make me remind you the napkin isn’t edible,” Tasha jibed as he inhaled what was left in front of him. He rolled his eyes and made a noise of rebuttal, and when she turned to gather up the leftover cartons, his fingers found the inside of her wrist.

 

She froze, waiting on him, not wanting anything but to be what he needed. It was a role she could only fully fall into with him, because she knew Clint never wanted her to be a weapon, and because she knew he would never ask more of her than she was capable of.

 

Not again, anyway.

 

Tonight she was more than capable, pliant even as he tugged her down into his lap. His kiss was heated, his tongue insistent as he gained entry to her mouth. He rumbled quietly and she swallowed the sound, shifting to mould her curves against him. His hands mapped the contours of her body -- shapes that he would know anywhere, now -- and she was slick against his fingers by the time she reached for his belt.

 

Clint made a different noise this time, and immediately went still.

 

Natasha slowly pulled her fingers away, slipping neatly off his lap to give him some space as rough fingers pinched the bridge of his nose.

 

“Tash... fuck, I can’t... I’m --”

 

“It’s fine.”

 

And it was. This wasn’t remotely how a weapon felt, and it was good. Well, maybe not good, but it was at least human. Rejection. Disappointment. And she could take it. For him.

 

She smoothed a hand over his hair and moved to pour him a glass of the cheap bourbon he kept. Really, the man had no taste, and as usual, the observation made her smile a little.

 

Natasha sat the glass beside him and moved to make up a bed on the couch, but 20 minutes later his voice was thick as he murmured a plea for company, and she nodded. It was easy, too easy, to tug on a pair of his oversized sweats and sink into his bed, turning on her side to curl back against him. It was even easier to feel safe there.

 

* * * * *

 

“Clint, would you just eat your goddamned Cinnabun and stop tapping? I already hacked the schedule; the recruits can wait, the range is all yours from 1100 to 1400.”

 

Clint glared at her, but he dropped his hand from the tabletop where it had been drumming down to his lap, where it wouldn’t make a sound. He wasn’t better this morning, but he was more together, the mask of normality drawn firmly in place.

 

"Pretty sure it's CinnaBON, god, get it right, no one's gonna believe you're American." He took a bite despite his grumbles. “...Thanks for hacking the schedule.” He could have done it himself... probably. But it’s nice to have someone else to blame anyway.

 

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” was all she said, letting him stay pressed against her so tightly that she’ll likely have a bruise from where his elbow meets her ribs. They spent the rest their meal in silence, but it wasn't the first one and it wouldn't be the last.

 

* * * * *

 

When she got to HQ, Sitwell met Natasha at the security point from the day before.

 

“He wanted you to know that you can find him in medical,” he informed her in a quiet voice. The look on her face must have been quizzical, because the agent went on. “Just a checkup. Monitoring, infusions. That sort of thing.”

 

She gave him a Look, one that said she would deal with him and whoever’s idea it was to keep this from her, and especially from Clint, later. -- though she had a good idea where the order had come from. She said nothing before turning on her heel in the direction of the med bay.

“Agent Romanoff, if I could have a word --”

 

“No. There’s your word.” Natasha didn’t break stride, and Maria reached out to catch her elbow.

 

“Let her go, Hill.”

 

Tasha paused midstep at the sound of Fury’s voice, but she didn’t turn to look at him. Maybe it was petulant -- she wouldn’t know, she’d never had the opportunity for petulance in her entire life -- but she was weary of feeling like a puppet being strung along. Maybe the Director knew that, in the way that he knew most things, because a moment later, she heard the heavy footfalls made by his boots headed in the opposite direction, followed shortly by Hill’s more petite stride.

 

The paper cup in her hand remained steady as she made her way to medical.

 

* * * * *

 

“Is that decaf?”

 

Natasha shot a withering look at the orderly, who promptly disappeared. The look Coulson gave her was one of bland amusement.

 

“You didn’t have to do that,” he said, and she wasn’t sure if she meant chasing off the staff or the coffee, so she shrugged and neatly plucked the cup from his hands.

 

“Romanoff.”

 

She couldn’t help the quick curve that flittered over her lips at the title, and she handed the cup back to him without a word, pulling a chair in close to his bedside.

 

“I think most people just say ‘thank you’, Phil,” she reprimanded. They were both dancing around the big, Barton-shaped elephant in the room, but Natasha honestly didn’t know when he would show up. She wasn’t his keeper, just his best friend, and though Phil knew better than to ask, he wished she had the answer anyway.

 

“Thank you, Phil,” he parroted, deadpan as ever. The corners of Natasha’s lips twitched, and she glanced at the saline IV they were running.

 

“How long are they keeping you today?” The med bay was akin to jail for her, and Clint felt largely the same.

 

“That’s set for four hours.” She shuddered at the answer, but he just shrugged. “Gives me time to catch up on paperwork.”

 

“You look exhausted,” she told him pointedly, not one for sugarcoating, and Phil winced a little.

 

“Miss Manners would have a field day with you. Is it that obvious?” His hand unconsciously reached to trail fingers over the phantom pains the scar left him with.

 

“Worse than those three weeks in Sao Paolo,” she chirped, pausing for a moment before her voice changed tone. “You could nap, you know.”

 

Phil caught her eye, and there was no hesitation before he nodded.

 

“I could do that.” He did pause this time, thinking. “Will you...?”

 

“Right here,” she promised, taking the contraband caffeine from him and setting it on the bedside table. She felt something like pride when he closed his eyes, his breathing becoming shallow and regulated. Natasha watched him, and listened for the door that didn’t open. Clint would get here in his own time, but for now she was holding onto things she thought she’d lost long ago.


End file.
